Our Organization's Founder

Our Organization's Founding

A Profile of our Spiritual Director Father Joseph P. TrombleyDavid Landolfe A simple, humble man, Fr. Joseph Trombley lacked impressive public presence. But as several people have testified, he was a priest honored by the special presence of his Lord and his Blessed Mother. Nothing could please Fr. Joe more, for that was simply his wish as he went out among his people. One of seven children, the son of Ellsworth Francis and Della Trombley, he was born on July 16, 1939, on their farm in Ellensburg Center, New York. which would one day become a center for prayer and spiritual renewal. His Dad’s death when he was nine, “was very traumatic for him. My teenage years were difficult without his presence,” he said. But the influence of St. Edmund’s pastor, Fr. Earl Taylor, helped him in his loss and led to his decision to become a priest. “He was very kind and considerate to me as I was really shy as an altar server. He was a priest who loved people.” Fr. Taylor spoke to the young man several times about attending Wadhams Hall minor seminary. “By 8th grade, I decided I wanted to become a priest,” he remembered. In 1957 he entered Wadhams Hall and also enrolled in the Secular Franciscan Order, having been attracted towards St. Francis since a teenager. Next he studied at Christ the King Seminary at St. Bonaventure University run by Franciscans. “They had a strong loyalty to Jesus, a sense of joy and offered us the simple way of Franciscan spirituality without a lot of external rules but gave us the choice to follow other ways to God. They wanted us to be free to follow the Spirit.” Ordained May 22, 1965, Fr. Trombley served in several parishes while becoming a leader in organizing the CCD program, first in Ogdensburg where he co-founded the first School of Religion in the diocese serving 1200 students, then in Massena, serving 1500.Streams of Grace But his efforts by the late 60’s left him in a state of exhaustion and looking for something deeper. In 1968, while on retreat he and a small group of priests asked Abbot Damsus Winzen, O.S.B., how to incorporate Vatican II’s changes into their work. “He closed his eyes, spoke to us for an hour on the Holy Spirit’s work in the Church and of the Catholic Pentecostal movement and said we could live to see the day it would spread throughout the whole Church. He died shortly after, but we have lived to see it.” Fr. Trombley began with two ladies, a prayer group in Ogdensburg, which grew to 30-40 people. He helped found a second prayer group in Massena and from 1978—1983 assisted Fr. William Connors, M.S.C. as Assistant Diocesan Moderator of Prayer Groups. “Some people say the Charismatic Renewal is only for a certain type of person but as far as I’m concerned it’s the work of the Holy Spirit one of God’ s ways to renew the whole Church. In many of our parishes half of the people serving have come from the renewal. This would be true in his work with secular Franciscans and the House of Prayer. In 1970 Fr. Trombley learned of Madonna House Apostolate (www.madonnahouse.org), a lay community in Combermere, Ontario, Canada founded by Catherine de Hueck Doherty, a secular Franciscan and member of the Russian aristocracy who fled the 1917 revolution to bring the riches of the Eastern Church’s spirituality West. Inspired by her profound convictions in living out the Gospel he became an Associate Priest in 1971. In 1972 Catherine visited this diocese and with the bishop’s permission, gave her blessing to Fr. Joe who established a house of prayer on the original Trombley farm. It has served as a listening house by the staff and to those who came, as well as a place for entering into “Poustinia” the Russian word for desert, where one fasts alone in silence to listen to the voice of God. ‘The house is run by Our Lady of the Adirondacks Prayer Association, founded by Fr. Trombley, whose 160 members fast and pray for the spiritual renewal of the diocese and who serve the needs the poor.On his birthday in 1971, Catherine had called Fr. Joe forward, giving him Madonna House community’s distinctive cross, uttering these prophetic words — “I know what this will mean to you — your total priesthood. With it will come a cross but also a greater joy than you have ever known”. By 1983, while pastor of Sacred Heart Church in Chazy, NY Fr. Trombley had again reached a point of exhaustion and collapsed during Mass on May 7. “I had been going too fast and taken on too many responsibilities,” he said; explained. . . He had a physical and nervous breakdown, which got progressively worse, lasting over four years. For several years he could only sleep one hour. “Eventually I couldn’t talk to anyone, even Jesus. I could only pray the rosary. My only consolations were receiving the Holy Eucharist and my relationship with Mary. He went, to the gates of hell, with temptations of suicide for several years. But the precious gift of faith gave him hope. The breakthrough came when “My prayer ‘changed from take this away from me to take me by the hand Lord and give me the courage to walk through it.’ I learned that my brokenness was rooted in my father’s death and the need to experience being fathered. I learned to better love and accept myself.”As Fr. Joe’s strength returned he traveled with Clay Becker and his wife to the Catholic shrines of Europe and related with them before and after. “I developed a father son relationship with Clay and through it I was healed and renewed in energy like never before.” He returned to active duty and while serving at St. Augustine’s in Peru founded, with Ron and Dee Black, a secular Franciscan pre-fraternity which meets monthly on the 2nd Sunday at the House of Prayer. In June 1988, he was transferred to St. Agnes Church in Lake Placid and on May 25, 1990, celebrated his 25th anniversary of ordination. Over 600 people representing the varied parts of his spiritual family gathered to celebrate the life, ministry and resurrection of this priest, whom Fr. Tom Moody, also associated with Madonna House, described as “a gentle, caring man with great discernment.” Rita Mawn, who runs Resurrection House of Prayer in Saranac Lake, New York, added, “Fr. Joe has always been a priest among his people. A friend and an example for the faithful who has grown in holiness through his own personal struggles. His silver jubilee was a celebration of the Lord’s healing power in his life, a power available to all of us.”Fr. Joe Trombley summed up his understanding of the purpose of his breakdown from the teachings at the Madonna House. Catherine used to speak of “Kenosis” a time and place where one is stripped naked, cracked open to the core by God so one can be filled with His presence, then our active apostolate in the Church in his power can be effective “ not so much by doing” but rather “by being presence”.When he was sick he told the Lord that if he healed him, he would like to go out among the people “simply cheering them up and bring them “Jesus’s” presence and bringing them to him. That’s what he tried to do here in all the subsequent parishes he was assigned. Each day was a new discovery of what the Lord had in store for him as he discovered himself in the splendor of the people and mountains of the Adirondacks. Father Joe’s last parish was St. Edmunds in Ellenburg, New York, two miles from the House of Prayer.He would have liked to be at the House of Prayer, but that joy was not given to him. He died in a similar way as his father. He was found by a parishioner who went to summon him for mass the morning of March 28, 2001.On the evening of the wake people came in large numbers from the reaches of the diocese in spite of blizzard conditions. The church could not hold the people who came to honor their friend, confidant, spiritual guide who had given similar to the presence of Jesus dwelling within him.Shalom Prayer: Almighty God, Loving Father Who called your servant Joseph To share in the priesthood of your son, Jesus Christ, in this world Mercifully grant to him, Eternal rest in the company of all the Saints in Heaven, Amen. Mary Queen Queen of the Clergy, Pray for All Priests.

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